1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reels used with cutter bars for standing crops such as harvesters, swathers or hay cutting equipment.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the prior art, harvester "air reels" have been advanced, as shown in U.S. reissue U.S. Pat. Re. No. 32,679. On air reels, an air manifold extends along the cutting platform of a harvester or grain header, and is spaced upwardly from the cutter bar. The manifold has a plurality of drop tubes that extend toward the cutter bar. The tubes have rearwardly directed nozzles that direct a curtain of air against the grain that is being cut by the header to urge the grain into the header. Air reels are particularly effective in short crop, because they will positively direct the grain into the header. In short, grain conventional bat type reels (which have bats or slats which are parallel to the cutter bar) have to be positioned extremely close to the cutter bar.
Air pickup systems have also been used for various harvester or fruit pickers, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,964,245. In this device, which is a picker for strawberries, air is used along with an overlying conveyer belt having tines that extend downwardly therefrom.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,734,331 shows an air attachment for a grain harvesting machine that has long guard members in front that direct a flow of air rearwardly, and these are used in connection with an air reel that has depending tubes that depend from a central manifold and direct air rearwardly toward the front of the cutter bar.
Also, various types of mechanical reels that have fingers on the bats are known. For example, the patents to H. D. Hume, such as U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,252,180 and 2,644,289, as well as U.S. Pat. No. 1,926,538 show reel bats that have outwardly extending tines or fingers which are operated through a cam drive mechanism so that the fingers will be substantially vertical as the reel bats enter the standing crop to reduce shattering of the crop and aid in urging the crop into the cutter bar.
Additional reel constructions which utilize fingers that are actuated as the reel rotates are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,698,166; 3,703,060; and 4,067,177. All of these reels have a plurality of spiders that rotate with the reel for supporting the bats at spaced locations, and these spiders generally are stiff spoked units that provide the necessary support. A device which shows a fixed cam for mounting pivoting bats is shown in Heth et al. U.S. Pat. No. 2,497,729. None of the mechanical reels show air assistance, and all are generally of the same type, but use different drives for orienting the bats vertically during operation of the reel.
The use of air reels in heavier crops has been limited, because the reels require the drop tubes to be fairly close to the cutter bar, and where a substantial amount of straw is present, the drop tubes can cause plugging, or they will push some of the standing grain down. Shattering losses thus will occur due to the fixed pipes. Likewise, the finger reels have limitations in very tall crops because they too will tend to shatter crop excessively, and also require positioning fairly close to the cutter bar so that feed into the header is maintained and thus visibility of the cutter bar is reduced during use.